Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the
village of Mary and her sister Martha.
This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick,
was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped
his feet with her hair.
So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."
When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end
in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through
it."
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he
was two more days.
Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to
Judea."
"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried
to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"
Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees
by this world's light.
It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has
no light."
After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our
friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."
His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get
better."
Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples
thought he meant natural sleep.
So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you
may believe. But let us go to him."
Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the
disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been
in the tomb for four days.
Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,
and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them
in the loss of their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to
meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have
died.
But I know that even now God will give you whatever you
ask."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise
again."
Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the
resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies;
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you
believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the
Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
And after she had said this, she went back and called her
sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for
you."
When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to
him.
Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at
the place where Martha had met him.
When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house,
comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her,
supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him,
she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have
died."
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along
with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
"Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord,"
they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of
the blind man have kept this
man from dying?"
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a
cave with a stone laid across
the entrance.
"Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha,
the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been
there four days."
Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed,
you would see the glory of God?"
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said,
"Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the
benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent
me."
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice,
"Lazarus, come out!"
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with
strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the
grave clothes and let him go."
Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and
had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what
Jesus had done.
Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting
of the Sanhedrin. "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man
performing many miraculous signs.
If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in
him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our
nation."
Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that
year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all!
You do not realize that it is better for you that one man
die for the people than that the whole nation perish."
He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that
year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,
and not only for that nation but also for the scattered
children of God, to bring them together and make them one.
So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the
Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called
Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went
up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the
Passover.
They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the
temple area they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn't he coming to the
Feast at all?"
But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that
if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might
arrest him.
